BIRTH CONTROL: How Did We Get Here? Movie Review

I first saw an advertisement for the movie: BIRTH CONTROL: How Did We Get Here? in a Christian woman’s magazine. It is a documentary geared toward asking why we use birth control. What struck me was its explanation of how birth control, pornography, and abortion are actually all tied in one monstrous issue. It documents what led to our current beliefs about birth control.

MY THOUGHTS:

The movie starts by asking a modern question. If the Bible says that children are a blessing from the Lord – then why are so few people having them? The answer lies in our history.

This film does a terrific job pointing out the origins of the abortion movement with well threaded timelines throughout showing the industry’s origins with Margaret Sanger.

ON MARGARET SANGER:

Margaret Sanger was the woman who pioneered this movement, and the movie gives us some great information on her background, her beliefs, and how she got started in the practice of killing babies.
She wasn’t a religious woman, and she was almost arrested by Anthony Comstock, the man who helped place a law that banned pornography in our nation for 100 years. But, she skipped the country, and Comstock never did get to arrest her. She instead made her way to Europe where she joined forces with some of the early 20th centuries most liberal, atheist thinkers. Years later, she returned to America with her abortion ideas labeled under the more medical term “Eugenics.” There the idea was formed by the earliest communist and socialist thinkers, who very much wanted to invade America with their ideas. Birth control, pornography, and abortion are a three-in-one killer of American freedom. If Americans could accept and allow one idea in their society, then the other two would be widely accepted, as well.

THE PLAN:

The new plan was to use medical terms to validate the need to keep family size low, and then, to eventually kill children. Even though much of American Christians believed that children were a blessing to have, the turn of the century had brought the industrial revolution, and families no longer had large acres for many children to help work. Most families lived in cities, and were very poor, working in factories, and people started wondering what they were going to do with all their children.

In walks Margaret Sanger with an answer. She had developed a pill that one could take that could “limit” the number of children one could have. This would prevent overpopulation, and would help make life easier, neat, and enjoyable for the couple. No longer would Americans have to be impoverished, wondering how many more “mouths they would have to feed.”

Slowly, through the passing of years, as secular ideologies permeated the culture of America, the idea became more and more popular. Margaret especially marketed to the African American community, as she was an avid racist, and frequently supported KKK women’s groups and spoke at their gatherings. For them it became a great way to kill the African race without having to do it themselves.

And, these ideas even infiltrated the Church. The movie uses a timeline to show how over just a few decades the idea of birth control went from abhorrent to accepted.

After Anthony Comstock passed away, the bill that went to law banning pornography pictures was challenged, and later died. Pornography became legal, and with it came a wave of demand for birth control.

It made sense. The European communist and socialist movement had said, if you can get one accepted, then they all will be accepted.
And here was a new generation, that had already been raised in the industrial revolution, atheism, and now pornography was legally distributed in magazines, media, and movies. It fueled the lust of young people, and with that came ideas like free love, and “casual sex” – sex without marriage, which leads to birth control.

THE THIRD LINK:

And then, after that, an even bigger problem arises: if birth control was not used (or if it failed), and pregnancy occurred, what do we do with a young, unmarried couple, who were not expecting to have a baby?

In comes the demand for abortion. Easier than stories many have heard of women hurting themselves in a back alley, one could make a doctor appointment and get their “problem” taken care of. This also continued to fuel the fire for the other now high in demand practices: pornography and birth control.

In fact, now that prayer had been taken out of schools in the early 1960’s, America’s moral compass had become severely damaged. At the end of the decade, Woodstock, government scandals, and a failed war would lead many Americans to question Christianity, the Bibles authority, and God altogether.

So it was no surprise that by 1973 abortion became a legal right for any American woman. Margaret Sanger, by then had already passed away (September 6th,1966; three 6’s??) but her legacy has lived on, unfortunately.

But, fortunately now, as a nation we have taken some great steps to end the practice of abortion. But the job is not done yet.

This film paints a beautiful and accurate portrait of where we are today as Americans regarding the issues of abortion and birth control. The movie makes a perfect on ramp for the sequel, named Birth control: Is it up to us? which handles the near-unanimously accepted topic of current personal birth control, especially in Christian families.

I am grateful for the main truths outlined in this documentary, but what really stood out to me was the underlying thread that brought the whole point of the movie together:
Why would we believe birth control is okay today?

I believe this movie will challenge a lot of mindsets about what is okay, not only in general regarding having children, but what is okay for them personally.

It challenged me with a few ideas.

I was born after Roe. Vs. Wade was legal, and grew up in the public school system my whole life. I wasn’t from a homeschooled Christian family, and none of my beliefs about marriage and family came from the bible.

It took a long time even after becoming a Christian to understand the real purpose of my sanctification in my marriage, and also through raising a family. One of the most profound thoughts I took away from this film was a sentence at the beginning that it is possible that families are God’s way of maturing the Christian and that we might have so few mature Christians, because we have so few families.

BULLS-EYE:

I’ve known Satan has targeted families for years, but I had not thought of the idea that he might have been also targeting the size of them this whole time.

This is not to say that the unmarried person or the family of just one child is immature as a Christian.

What I am saying is that this movie gives you reason to believe that there has been a well-crafted, targeted approach in our land (for over 100 years) to eradicate the content, large Christian family. The enemy’s goals are to make people selfish, godless, and have empty lifestyles so they will stay far from God – ending up in hell with their offspring never being born.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This is especially for those of you who do, or have practiced using birth control in your family. Get this movie. Watch it with an open heart.

And, even if you disagree with the director’s focus, I ask you to consider this: Isn’t Satan’s agenda from scripture to steal, kill, and destroy? Then what higher battle grounds, what richer victory would he seek than to steal our most precious gift and deadly attack weapon (our children PS. 127)? And then kill those lives or prevent them from being born because he doesn’t want them having a godly influence in this world. He wants to destroy our destiny and the legacy of God in this earth by eradicating our children – and getting us to do it.

I know many (including myself in the past) have argued why bring up children in this terrible world, anyway. They’d just live unhappy lives.
To that I say, are you the author of life? Do we know the end from the beginning? God is the only one who knows when and how a life is to be lived. Who are we to decide whether or not a person is going to have a great life? Shouldn’t a person be given the chance to live and make that choice for themselves? I believe this to be true, since God is the One who determines how a person should live, then He should be the One in charge of deciding when a person should live.

I hope that whether you loved, hated, or felt indifferent to this review, that you get this movie and see it for yourself. Packed with American history, Church history, and discussing hot, controversial topics, Birth control: How did we get here? will leave an impression with you that you will not soon forget.